Facilitating Impact Evaluations: Recommendations from the LAC Reads Evaluations

Successful implementation of a randomized impact evaluation can be difficult, time consuming, and expensive, causing many researchers to avoid or not fully implement this rigorous approach. As a result, funders and implementers may not receive strong evidence on which to base their program decisions. The evaluations conducted under the LAC Reads project reveal several factors that can facilitate a successful randomized impact evaluation. These factors include: engaging stakeholders and partners on the ground, being nimble and creative, evaluating validated programs, using national data to improve cost-efficiency and relevance, and using multisite approaches and multiple comparisons to generate generalizable results.